BasharOfTheAges wrote:2 awards? Fine. 3? You may be pushing tolerance a bit. Once you get to the point you're giving a single video 4 or more awards at a single contest, though? Even the audience starts to think (and sometimes vocalize) a sentiment of "hey, this just feels wrong."

It's foolish to think even professional awards committees don't have an "OK, this shit is getting ridiculous" limit in place for their shows - if for nothing more than guilt over contributing to drama and resentment.

In that respect, you must really hate the Academy Awards when they give a movie more then two awards

Vlad

It's a preponderance thing. When you have a contest that gives out 30 or so awards, winning 3 isn't a big deal. When you have 10, 3 is a much bigger deal. There's a point at which if feels like it's no longer about recognition, but rather, about rubbing everyone elses' face in it.

There's a point at which if feels like it's no longer about recognition, but rather, about rubbing everyone elses' face in it

^ This. In the last months there have been contests that due the lack of money, they can't offer prizes for the winners, and when I ask some friends if they want to submit something. They say no since the contest doesn't offer any prize, which makes me wonder if people is actually doing this for the fun.

I want to bring another question to the topic:

Let's say you as coordinator get a video that fits 4 categories (Action, Drama, Romance and Trailer)It's the best video during the judgement and no video in the 4 categories can't really compete against it.It's time to decide the winners, Will you give the 4 Best categories awards to the same video plus Best in Show, Best Technical and Judge Choice awards?

Let's say you as coordinator get a video that fits 4 categories (Action, Drama, Romance and Trailer)It's the best video during the judgement and no video in the 4 categories can't really compete against it.It's time to decide the winners, Will you give the 4 Best categories awards to the same video plus Best in Show, Best Technical and Judge Choice awards?

Why is the video competing in all 4 categories to begin with? Normally if there are categories then a video is only tied to 1.

Now, if we are talking about a contest where there is one pool to draw from for awards (Like AWA or Youmacon) and your deciding awards and want to give out those specific ones, then yes, I would put that video up for all of those awards.

Actually, that is what could (and has) happened with the AWA Professional awards as the creators may give an Video a lot of awards in multiple categories...

Look, I don't want this to become a heated debate with firebombs or scare away creators from contests because they will be tormented, ridiculed or forced to feet guilty, etc. just because they win multiple awards. Quite honestly, there is no right or wrong here but lots of opinions and as it's up to the contest how they want to do things in their rules... Hmmm... Funny, this is just like the debate many years ago on how many awards at different cons a video could win...

Lastly, the way I see it, winning multiple awards is not "rubbing it into everyone's else's' face", it an honor and only really the creator who won is who can rub it into everyone's else' face if they decide that is what they want to do with it (and that is a whole different story then).

TritioAFB wrote:Can I ask about what you think of a video that keeps winning all the Best of Show in a year and it's still being submitted?

This debate always seems to around now and then.

If you've got a vid that's racking up awards at all the top events, I don't see a problem. In fact, I applaud that. However, if you're also sending it to every single tiny podunk con within the northern hemisphere, that might be a bit much.

I don't think that's what often happens though. What happens is now and then there's a vid that wins at three or four big cons and then people start pressuring the creator to retire it so that their good-but-not-as-good vid can have a chance. I just roll my eyes.

I also don't think too highly of competitions exhibitions that ban vids that have won awards at other events. I equate it to a kids soccer match where the refs don't keep score because "everybody is a winner". Penalizing a vid for being good just seems profoundly and disgustingly asinine to me.

I've also heard the argument that spamming a winning vid to multiple events ends up making competitions stale. Well, no, that's what freshness rules are for. Those do a more effective job and are more fair.

There's a point at which if feels like it's no longer about recognition, but rather, about rubbing everyone elses' face in it

^ This. In the last months there have been contests that due the lack of money, they can't offer prizes for the winners, and when I ask some friends if they want to submit something. They say no since the contest doesn't offer any prize, which makes me wonder if people is actually doing this for the fun.

How large are those events?

I think what it comes down to what one's goals are when submitting an AMV. Are you making a vid and submitting it to an event just for the sake of art, or are you doing it for the sake of competition? I think that's where there's a conflict because some people do it for the former, others do it for the latter.

If one were doing it just for the sake of art, then it shouldn't matter whether you win something or not so long as it gets seen.

If one were doing it for the challenge of competition and I (assuming I still made AMVs) knew I had an epic vid, then I would probably reserve it for the top five AMV events (plus maybe the local events). If it wins across the board, that's an achievement. I don't see how that's "rubbing everyone's face in it". It would perhaps be if I started sending it to every small con across the entire northern hemisphere too.

Some people might not give much consideration to some of the smaller events (by small I mean >10,000 attendees) because, to be blunt, those are less of a challenge. A victory there wouldn't be as satisfying. Alas, therein lies a challenge some smaller AMV events themselves face whereby if they want more entries they'd need to come up with some sort of attractive prize or find a way to give their award and event some gravitas or cachet. Every event should give out something though, even if it's just a certificate, but preferably something unique and special, and it needn't be expensive. NDK got clever and came up with the "Asukas", which are cheap but damn cool, for example.

Ileia wrote:I've been on both ends. I've had a video take Best in Show at cons where the category award went to the next in line.....and I've been that next in line before. From the Best in Show standpoint, not getting the category award isn't a huge deal (and making a big deal out of it seems almost greedy). But when I'm the "second best" and I'm given the award for best? I hate that feeling.

Knowing that you weren't really the winner, that you were only chosen on a technicality, robs that win of any of its meaning. If I'm competing with other videos in a category, I want to compete with all of them. Taking one out of the running because it won Best in Show is like demoting the rest of the videos. I would rather lose fair and square than be given an award where it's basically, "Yeah, you can be the best...out of the rest. This one is too good for the likes of you guys." If a video wins, it wins. Simple as that.

yes. This is my exact view on the matter. I feel that if a video wins something, it should be allowed to keep it. And giving it to the 2nd place video may sound nice on paper, but it also is just a little bit demoralizing since everybody knows that they didn't really win.

BasharOfTheAges wrote:2 awards? Fine. 3? You may be pushing tolerance a bit. Once you get to the point you're giving a single video 4 or more awards at a single contest, though? Even the audience starts to think (and sometimes vocalize) a sentiment of "hey, this just feels wrong."

It's foolish to think even professional awards committees don't have an "OK, this shit is getting ridiculous" limit in place for their shows - if for nothing more than guilt over contributing to drama and resentment.

In that respect, you must really hate the Academy Awards when they give a movie more then two awards

Vlad

It's a preponderance thing. When you have a contest that gives out 30 or so awards, winning 3 isn't a big deal. When you have 10, 3 is a much bigger deal. There's a point at which if feels like it's no longer about recognition, but rather, about rubbing everyone elses' face in it.

Probably also worth clearing up (based on side-conveesations), I don't hate anything. I don't even have a strong opinion on the matter. I just see and hear other people (audience members, editors, con staff that are in charge of spending money on cool trophies) complain about this sort of thing and am capible of empathizing with their position, and, in some cases, can speculate about the consequences of ignoring it.

Really good conversation going, some great points being made from everyone. I agree with just about everything that's been said.

I don't feel it's right for a runner up to receive a "Best" or 1st Place award on a technicality. But at the same time it's more interesting and satisfying for awards to be nicely spread around. HOWEVER, if a video sweeps and wins over both the judges AND the audience, then it deserves to be recognized for its achievement.

What about an editor who enters multiple videos and wins multiple categories? The same theory applies, right? What's the maximum number of entries an entrant should have?

Rider4Z wrote:What about an editor who enters multiple videos and wins multiple categories? The same theory applies, right?

I don't think so, no. At least from the people I've heard complain the loudest (not editors), It's not about recognizing or not recognizing (or over-recognizing) an individual - That's a straw-man. It's about the audience and the con expecting an award show of some length and getting something far shorter instead.

Rider4Z wrote:What about an editor who enters multiple videos and wins multiple categories? The same theory applies, right? What's the maximum number of entries an entrant should have?

I think this is partially dependent on how judging works. I think it's probably wise for a contest to accept a good amount of entries from each person, but it would work best if there's a method built into the scoring that even if a specific editor's videos are sublime, only a certain amount of them get into finals unless the turnout overall is abysmal. I'm not sure how this could be done and still have it be "fair", but I know I don't mind if an editor has multiple videos appear in the finals of a contest. I would draw the line at seeing a single editor's work appear in every or nearly every category during a finals show.

I think the method I like best is "You can send in X number of videos, or X + Y if Y videos consist of Comedy/Trailer/Parody/Whatever. It helps protect the categories that are likely to get less entries while giving the editors themselves a better opportunity to get multiple types of their work viewed.

This is something that will happen often from now on. If we take the current situation of the contests, we have almost the same contendants and although I like to see new faces from time to time, I don't deny the fact that if you have 3 or more videos that are considered the best in the moment, you can't really oppose to them... unless new videos that might be a challenge appear by that time

After all, it's the will of the audience that prevails in the contests... or at least that's what I think

The same editor winning multiple awards issue was one thing that ultimately prompted the switch over for Youmacon to it's current award/judging configuration. At the time we allowed 1 video per creator per category. With 8 or so categories that was the potential for an editor to take home 10+ awards (with best of show, hentai, and other awards) and that caused some resentment from some of our local editors when at the time the two compbros (DA and BG) had mostly swept the contest 2 years straight (most of which was directed directly at the two, and not actually us on staff.) Our current setup was the solution, since we didn't want to limit the potential for an editor taking everything with their entries, but at the same time make it more difficult due to the uniqueness of each year's awards.

I can see where the entrants who won nothing are coming from (minus the standard I think my video was better then yours sentiment) and at the same time find it a nice reward to win a number of awards at a contest. I don't exactly have much of an opinion on the matter myself. Though I'm more of the mindset that you shouldn't need to arbitrarily limit entries or awards. Which I suppose is part of the reason why I accept everything.